Mean Boy by Lynn Coady

being dismissed, explained Jim. It counts for something. But that doesn’t mean, he said, that we don’t have anything to learn from those who have come before us.
    “Rimbaud was just some hick from a farm!” I burbled at this point.
    “Rimbaud was just some hick from a farm,” agreed Jim.
Like us, like us
. “He didn’t let that limit him. He didn’t let that stifle his imagination.”
    “That’s exactly what I was trying to say!”
    I was bursting to talk about a hundred other things with Jim, realizing this was the moment I’d been waiting for since the day I came to Timperly. Intimate friendship with Jim Arsenault, conversing like old pals over beers in his living room. I could hardly contain myself. At that moment, however, the same was true of my bladder—I hadn’t used the bathroom since I’d arrived, afraid I might miss an opportunity just like this one. So I excused myself, wincing with pain and reluctance, and made my way to the kitchen. I had to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom—like in a lot of old houses, it had been installed as close to the wood stove as possible. Grandma Lydia has a similarly unappetizing set-up in her evil, be-doilied hut.
    The kitchen looked as though a couple of bags of flour had exploded therein, followed by a minor typhoon. The strangest thing, however, was the dog. There was a dog justsitting there, in the middle of the flour, staring at me as if I was the bizarre apparition instead of it. I didn’t remember seeing a dog last time I was at Jim’s. As I stared back, it got to its feet, went to the corner of the room to acquire a brownish tennis ball, carried the tennis ball back to where it—the dog—had originally been sitting, and placed it—the ball—on the floor. Then it sat down to resume looking at me. When I smiled, it ducked its head and nudged the ball so that it rolled toward my feet.
    I kicked the ball slightly, heading to the toilet, but the dog sprang to its feet and began to spin around in rapid circles, barking its head off. The thing looked to be taking a fit—I was expecting to see foam at any moment. It wouldn’t stop barking. I shushed at it and waved my arms, which made it bark louder. Somehow I’d driven Jim’s dog insane.
    “Don’t throw that dog the ball!” Moira shouted from the next room.
    “Okay!” I sang back. “Shh!” I said to the dog. The dog shrieked barks back at me, so loud its voice cracked. I thought it was going to be sick.
    “If you throw the ball, it just gets him more excited!” Moira yelled.
    “Okay!” I ran to the bathroom and shut the door. The barking stopped like a recording had been switched off.
    I stood there for a while after I’d used the toilet, looking around. There was no tub, no shower either. I wondered where Jim and Moira bathed. I explored the medicine cabinet. Aspirins and anti-flatulent.
    When I came out, the dog was sitting in the same spot, with the filthy ball in its mouth. It placed the ball on the floor the moment I stepped across the threshold, then lifted its beady eyes to meet mine—aglint with psychotic readiness.

    Of course Jim was gone from the chesterfield by the time I manoeuvred my way out of the kitchen, replaced by Moira, who sat alone viciously biting her nails.
    God, stop that
, I wanted to say when I sat down beside her. She was chewing away at the cuticle of her thumb with a sick, desperate fervour—the way you imagine wolves in leg traps would gnaw at their own ensnared limbs.
    After Moira explained to me one final time that I must never play ball with the dog, as it “only gets him riled up,” I sat down and asked, needing to change the subject, so how did you and Jim meet? She hasn’t stopped talking since.
    At this point I don’t even remember what her original answer was. Jim is huddled by the record player arguing with Charles Slaughter about the finer points of bluegrass music. Todd is talking beseechingly of Robert Service to Professor